Hitherto we have been concerned with the Dalmatian coast-cities and the great parallel lines of road that traversed the length of the Province from the borders of Pannonia and Italy to those of Epirus. From Salonæ there were, in addition to these highways to the North and South, at least two main-lines of Roman Way that traversed the interior ranges of the Dinaric Alps and led to the Mœsian and Dardanian borders that lay to the East and South-East. Milliary columns have been found at Salonæ, one recording the completion by Tiberius' Legate Dolabella of a line of road leading from the Colony of Salonæ to a mountain stronghold of the Ditiones—an Illyrian clan probably inhabiting what is now the North-East region of Bosnia; another, also of Tiberius' time, referring to the construction of a line, 156 miles in extent, from Salonæ to a Castellum of the Dæsitiates, an Illyrian clan belonging to the Conventus or administrative district of Narona, and whose stronghold, according to the mileage given, must be sought somewhere on the Upper Drina, towards the Moesian and Dalmatian confines. This latter line may very well be that represented in the Tabula Peutingeriana as leading from Salonæ to Argentaria, a name which seems to connect itself with the silver-bearing ranges lying on the uncertain boundary of the ancient Dalmatia and Dardania, and which, from its mineral riches, was still known in the Middle Ages as Monte Argentaro.

The original City or fortress of Ardea was built upon a rock on the coast of the Mediterranean, although the sea has receded so much in that part that it is now three miles off. This is equally the case at Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, which is not many miles from Ardea. It is extremely probable that this was among the earliest settlements of the Greeks in that part of Italy, which afterwards came to be called Magna Graecia, although many modern critics will not allow this. According to my ideas, in all these cases of early settlements the walls themselves afford better evidence than anything that has been written about them, because these settlements were made and the walls were built centuries before the use of writing. The comparison of a score of examples of existing remains therefore tells more of true history than any verbal criticism can do.

The coast-line of the extremity of Western Cornwall has been so often laid under contribution of late by the artist's pencil, that its general features are familar to many who have never paid the country a personal visit. The fantastic forms which the weather-worn granite assumes as it rears itself in bosses (or “karns” as they are locally termed) between the deeply-cleft gullies down which the streams of red mine-water find their broken way, are the characteristics of that portion of the cliff which, lying between the promontories of the Land's End and Cape Cornwall, are turned most directly towards the setting sun. It is along this line of coast—some six or seven miles in extent—that the stone cairns which formed the burying-places of an early population are found in greater abundance than is the case in any other portion of the district. Along this same strip of sea-board are no less than three of those fortifications known as cliff castles, defended in each case by lines of ramparts crossing the necks of headlands from side to side, terminating at either end in the abrupt precipice of the cliff, and always intended to resist attack from the land side. Within these lines stone cairns are frequently found—a fact which seems to point to the conclusion that the latter are the more recent of the two; since, were it not so, the castle-builders would have availed themselves of the pile of stone already on the spot and ready to their hand.

The Series of Paintings on the vault of the apse to the north aisle of St. Mary's Church, Guildford, unlike so many which have exercised our attention for a long time past, are of no new discovery, but were disclosed as far back as 1825. In 1838, they were described, and a solution proposed by my old friends, Edward John Carlos and John Gough Nichols, in the Archaeologia, vol. XXVII. p. 413. There are no two names which recall to me more reverent associations than those of the friends I have mentioned. Mr. Carlos was my master in archaeology, and Mr. Nichols's services are well known to this Society. But at the time they wrote little or nothing was known of the popular religious art of the Middle Ages. Didron had but begun his researches, and Maury had not written at all; whilst, in this country, whitewash still covered most of the walls of our churches. Therefore it is not a matter of surprise that their attempted solution is inaccurate, nor have those who have followed them been more fortunate. Guesses have been vaguely made, always an unsure process, for there is nothing more likely to deceive than attempts to find out the meaning of a subject without any principle to go upon: it is like a voyage upon an unknown sea, without rudder or compass. In fact, the subjects I am about to explain, are exceedingly obscure until the clue is obtained; and, at one time, I feared I must have confessed my ignorance, though not admitting the accuracy of the solution given by my friends. They are unique to my experience, and especially curious in the manner in which they are associated together.

It was in the month of March 1884, I think, that the May or of Winchester, Mr. Thomas Stopher, asked me to look at some ancient documents which had been found put away in a garret over a solicitor's office in Winchester. The documents, when I went to the place, proved to be the long-lost Charters of the City. The discovery was one of some interest just then, when we citizens were all thinking of the approaching celebration of the seven-hundredth anniversary of the mayoralty, in the following month of July. The discovery, too, gave us a nearly complete series of charters from Henry II. to Henry VIII. inclusive, whereas the earliest charter previously known to be in existence was that of Queen Elizabeth, now exhibited in our museum.

In the Book of Common Prayer, in the Kalendar, on December the sixteenth, the words

O Sapientia

occur, which words some have fondly imagined to be the names of a Virgin and Martyr, whom they tried, “with much ingenuity and more ignorance,” to prove one of the companions of S. Ursula; (1) and others have confounded the

O Sapientia

with the mediaeval devotion of the XV. O's, (2) which in no shape or form was, at any time, part of a liturgical service, but merely fifteen private prayers each beginning with the letter 0, as may be seen in Mr. Maskell's Monumenta Ritualia. (3) These XV. O's, however, are of some interest, as they were printed by Caxton in English, and are to be found in most of our Prymers. (3)